*May 2014*


*Rozanna Pfeiffer Has Retired*

Rozanna Pfeiffer, chief of interpretation for Lake Meredith NRA and
Alibates Flint Quarries NM, retired in April after 22 years with the
Federal government, 18 of those with the NPS. Pfeiffer received a BA in
English and religion from Columbia College, a MA in Near Eastern archeology
from Drew University, and a second MA in Near Eastern studies from the
University of Arizona. Prior to her career with the NPS, Pfeiffer spent 15
years as an archeologist in Israel, Jordan, Egypt, Tunisia, England, and
the United States.

 Pfeiffer began her NPS career as a volunteer at Congaree NP.  She then
went on to work as a seasonal at Mesa Verde NP and Death Valley NP before
becoming permanent at C & O Canal NHP. She continued her career at the
National Mall, the Old Post Office Tower, and Shenandoah NP before being
accepted into the mid-level intake program and moving to the Statue of
Liberty NM.  After graduating from the intake program, Pfeiffer accepted a
position as chief of interpretation at Lake Meredith NRA and Alibates Flint
Quarries NM.

 During her eight and a half years as chief of interpretation, Pfeiffer
oversaw the construction of a new visitor center for Alibates Flint
Quarries NM, production of an award-winning film, and development of a
native plant garden. She also created a new annual event, “Alibates Rocks!
FlintFest,” now in its fifth year; was instrumental in forming a
partnership with Window on a Wider World (WOWW) to provide educational
programming to underserved students of the Texas Panhandle; and provided
multiple opportunities for community involvement and outreach through
events such as National Junior Ranger Day, the Amarillo 4th of July
celebration, Fritch’s Howdy Neighbor Day, Frank Phillips College’s Baby
Animal Day, the Perryton Stone Age Fair, and San Antonio Missions’ “Get
Outdoors, It’s Yours!”

 While she has enjoyed working for the NPS, Pfeiffer is looking forward to
returning home to South Carolina and spending more time with family and
friends.  She plans to continue working on her favorite hobby, genealogy,
and wants to return to the Middle East for more archeological digs. In her
“spare” time, she hopes to take up watercolor painting and learn to play
the concertina.

*Preston Fisher Is Retiring*
Preston Fisher is retiring after 13 years as the Vanishing Treasures
Program's structural engineer and a 32-year government career. Fisher was
born in Cortez, Colorado, and grew up on a farm in Worland, Wyoming.  He
earned a BS in civil engineering from the University of Wyoming in 1981 and
began a government career in 1982 with the BOR in Duchesne, Utah.  Fisher
became the lead inspector for the construction of the BOR’s Central Utah
Project Office Building and lead engineer for compilation of the Upper
Stillwater Dam construction completion report.

 In 1987, he began working for the BIA. As a safety of dams engineer, he
oversaw all aspects of the Albuquerque Area Office safety of dams program
and was responsible for safety and integrity of dams on Indian reservations
in New Mexico, Arizona, and Colorado. Fisher transferred to the BIA Wind
River Agency in Ft. Washakie, Wyoming, in 1990. There he managed and
directed all operations for a 40,000-acre irrigation project.

From 1992 to 1998, Fisher worked for BOR in Saipan as a civil
engineer/technical advisor for the water division of the Commonwealth
Utilities Corporation. In1998, he worked for the BIA Southern Ute Indian
Reservation in Ignacio, Colorado as an irrigation project manager/roads
engineer. He managed the Southern Ute Indian irrigation project and oversaw
maintenance and construction of BIA roads within the reservation.

 In 2001, Fisher joined the NPS as the Vanishing Treasures Program
structural engineer. The program focuses on preserving earthen and stone
masonry architecture.  He evaluated structural integrity, monitored areas
of potential movement, and recommended stabilization and preservation
measures for historic and prehistoric resources in 46 NPS units in the NPS
Intermountain and Pacific West Regions. His enthusiasm and care for the
resources will be greatly missed.

*By Betty Lieurance*

*Duane Hubbard Named Superintendent of Tonto National Monument*
Duane Hubbard, a 14-year Federal employee, has been named superintendent of
Tonto NM in Central Arizona. He assumed his new duties on May 18, 2014.
Hubbard was formerly an archeologist and cultural resource specialist for
the Southern Arizona Office in Phoenix, a position he has held since 2010.

Hubbard left the Northern Arizona University Anthropology Department as a
research specialist and joined the Federal government in 2000 as a park
archeologist and chief of cultural resources at Salinas Pueblo Missions NM
in Mountainair, New Mexico. From 2003 to 2010, he worked for Tonto NM as an
exhibit specialist, park archeologist, and chief of resources.

Hubbard graduated from Northern Arizona University with a BA in geography
in 1994 and a MA in anthropology in 2000. He also served as a board member
on the Arizona Archaeological Council; Arizona’s representative on the
Intermountain Region’s Resource Stewardship Advisory Team; regional
cultural resources representative on the National Cultural Resources
Advisory Group; and has worked closely with the Arizona SHPO on the Arizona
Governors Archaeology Advisory Commission.

*Archeologist Pei-Lin Yu Leaving NPS*
Pei-Lin Yu, Rocky Mountains CESU Cultural Specialist, will be departing NPS
on June 28, 2014, to take up a tenure-track faculty position at Boise State
University in Boise, Idaho. Research plans include high-elevation
archeology and landscape scale traditional ecological knowledge synthesis
in the Northern Rockies; and investigations in the Upper Paleolithic to
early agricultural transitions, and ethnoarcheology with indigenous
communities in eastern Taiwan. Yu can be reached through the Boise State
University Anthropology Department and looks forward to future
collaborations with NPS friends and colleagues as a researcher.

* NPS Archeologist Rex Wilson Passes*
Rex Wilson, a U.S. Navy veteran and NPS archeologist, passed away on April
7, 2014. Wilson attended graduate school in anthropology at the University
of Oklahoma and graduated in 1957. He joined the NPS as an archeologist
which took him to positions in Georgia, New Mexico, Wyoming, Virginia, and
Arizona before moving to Washington, D.C., where he served as Departmental
Consulting Archeologist. He was 87.

 From 1973 to 1974, he completed Ph.D course work in archeology at the
University of Oklahoma and returned to Washington, D.C. to serve as Chief
of the Interagency Archaeological Services Division. He later went on to
serve as Senior Archeologist for the National Trust for Historic
Preservation and Chief Archeologist for the Office of Surface Mining.

 During his career, Rex produced numerous professional publications, the
most notable being “Bottles of the Western Frontier” (University of Arizona
Press, 1981), which is considered the definitive resource in this subject.

 *Battle Bicentennial Draws Thousands to Horseshoe Bend National Military
Park*
At approximately 10:00 a.m. on March 27, 1814, a cannonade began in the
horseshoe-shaped peninsula of the Tallapoosa River in present-day Alabama.
The subsequent battle among U.S. forces, their allied Creek National
Council and Cherokee forces, and their opposition, the Red Stick Creeks,
would greatly expand the boundaries of the U.S. Two hundred years later, at
almost the same time that the cannonade began, staff and visitors gathered
at Horseshoe Bend NMP to commemorate the Battle of Horseshoe Bend with
three days of reflection and education. The park hosted a delegation of 300
elders, officials, ceremonial leaders, and citizens of the Muscogee (Creek)
Nation of Oklahoma. According to the tribal government, this was the
largest organized gathering of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation in Alabama since
removal in the 1830s.

 The event included a reading of a proclamation in commemoration of the
bicentennial by Cheryl Cunningham, for Representative Mike Rogers; and
speeches by Lieutenant Colonel Larry Norred, a decorated veteran of the
Alabama National Guard, and Dr. Kathryn H. Braund, Hollifield Professor of
Southern History, former Friends Group president.

 Events included a ceremonial stomp dance, the first since 1814 at the site
of the Tohopeka Creek village. The final event of the day was the lighting
of 850 luminaries, representing the lives lost at the Battle of Horseshoe
Bend. Following the bicentennial commemoration, visitors enjoyed a weekend
of cannon demonstrations and interpretive programs on Creek and frontier
culture.  The Tennessee War of 1812 Bicentennial Commission and the
Tennessee Division of the U.S. Daughters of 1812 held a service at the
grave of Major Lemuel Montgomery of Tennessee and the 39th U.S. Infantry.

 Over 7,000 visitors attended the events at the park and at Auburn
University.

 NPS staff from Kennesaw Mountain NBP, Canaveral NS, Jean Lafitte NHP&P,
Tuskegee Institute NHS, Tuskegee Airman NHS, Selma to Montgomery NHT,
Little River Canyon NP, the NPS Northeast Regional Office, and the National
War of 1812 Bicentennial program assisted with the event. Partners included
the Muscogee (Creek) Nation, Friends of Horseshoe Bend NMP, Inc., and
Eastern National. Troy Mueller, chief ranger at Little River Canyon
National Preserve, was incident commander.

 For more information about Horseshoe Bend NMP, go to:
http://www.nps.gov/hobe/index.htm.

* Hopi Tribesmen Intervene to Shore Up Hovenweep National Monument Ruins*
A direct descendant of the original inhabitants at Hovenweep, foreman
Hershel Talashoma said his grandfather introduced him to the techniques of
traditional Hopi stonework. Since 2009, he and fellow tribesmen Eloy Wytewa
and Norman Albert, have worked to stabilize ancient ruins at Hovenweep NM
utilizing historic methods and local resources.

 The tribesmen are working at the Hovenweep NM’s Cajon Canyon site in
southeast Utah, located nine miles from the visitor’s center and completely
surrounded by the Navajo reservation. All the canyon head ruins at
Hovenweep NM date to the 1270s.

 With balls of red clay in hand, Wytewa and Albert squeeze dabs of mortar
in between the Dakota sandstone bricks at Cajon. They use Marshalltown tuck
pointers to push the mortar deep into the cracks before smoothing the
joints. Small “chinking” stones are used sparingly.

 Preservation efforts at Hovenweep NM were first made in the 1940s and,
starting in the 1960s, crews used concrete to stabilize structures. NPS
switched to native soils mixed with an acrylic polymer as mortar starting
in the 1970s, which is a longer-lasting and more durable material.

 Involved with the project is NPS archeologist Noreen Fritz. Fritz has
worked in the Four Corners since 1990, and she was introduced to site
preservation efforts as part of a post-fire archeological project at Mesa
Verde NP in 1997. She’s also done similar repair work at Natural Bridges
NM, Canyonlands NP and Arches NP.

 The latest round of restoration efforts at Hovenweep NM were launched when
Fritz secured funding through the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act,
but guest user fees fund today’s repairs. Renovation was needed to protect
structures that were in immediate and imminent danger from natural erosive
factors and cumulative pressures of visitation.

A Ute word meaning “Deserted Valley,” Hovenweep was discovered by an
expedition of Mormon colonists in 1854. Built directly atop bedrock and
situated around the head of a small canyon at 5,200 feet above sea level,
the remaining intact structures at Cajon are two- and three-stories high,
indicating a large habitation site. White painted pictographs are located
below the canyon rim. Hovenweep NM structures represent the best preserved,
protected, most visibly striking and accessible examples of 13th Century
pueblo architecture and community locations in the San Juan River basin.

 For more information on Hovenweep NM, go to:
http://www.nps.gov/hove/index.htm

 *Students Gather to Outline Earthwork at Hopewell Culture National
Historical Park*
On April 17, 2014, Seip Earthworks came alive with the help of the staff,
students, and families of Paint Valley Local Schools; visitors from
Greenfield McClain High School; and the staff at Hopewell Culture NHP. The
Living Earthwork, a project led by Paint Valley High School science teacher
Cathy Daugherty and her Science Club students, was a resounding success,
with over 1,200 students outlining this great geometric earthwork. The
earthworks were built by the Hopewell Culture, which thrived in this area
from 100 BC to 400 AD.  Participants outlined the original 2.3 miles of the
site’s earthen wall.

Seip Earthworks is one of many large geometric enclosures in Hopewell
Culture NHP. Paint Valley Local Schools created a unique opportunity to
celebrate and explore the Hopewell Culture of Southern Ohio. The schools
are located next to this nationally protected historical site.

Hopewell Culture NHP and National Park Foundation Park Stewards has a 20
year long partnership with Cathy Daugherty at Paint Valley Schools, that
have provided numerous stewardship opportunities for staff and students.

The Living Earthworks project was coordinated by NPS rangers Melinda Repko
and Susan Knisley, with technical assistance from Dr. Bret Ruby and Drew
Long.

For more information on Hopewell Culture NHP, go to:
http://www.nps.gov/hocu/index.htm

* Archeologists Unearth Remnants of Early Days at Booker T. Washington
National Monument*
The Burroughs tobacco farm — now Booker T. Washington NM in Virginia,
honors the legacy of a notable African American educator and leader who
lived in the late 1800s and early 1900s.

Archeologists, including two NPS archeologists and two historical landscape
architects from NPS’s Olmsted Center for Landscape Preservation, have
recently been excavating at the farm, in hopes of offering visitors a
deeper glimpse into Booker T. Washington’s early life.

Washington, then nine years old, left the plantation with his mother at the
end of the Civil War for West Virginia. Later, he attended Hampton
University in Virginia and became the first leader of the renowned Tuskegee
Institute in Alabama.

The Burroughs home burned down, but is marked with a fenced-in area.
Through the work of the archeologists and historical landscape architects,
park officials hope to create a more realistic picture of the space circa
1865.

Read more:
http://www.newsadvance.com/news/local/historians-unearth-remnants-of-booker-t-washington-s-early-days/article_a1692d26-ccf4-11e3-b52f-0017a43b2370.html

To learn more about Booker T. Washington NM, go to:
http://www.nps.gov/bowa/index.htm

 *Poverty Point National Monument’s World Heritage Site Status in Doub*t
The UNESCO World Heritage Committee, drawing representatives from 21
countries, will meet June 15 – June 25 in Doha, Qatar, to consider 41 new
World Heritage Site nominations. Of those, 12 have been recommended for
inscription, or inclusion, as World Heritage Sites.

Poverty Point NM’s nomination as a World Heritage Site has suffered a
serious blow following a recommendation that it be deferred, although state
and Federal officials believe they can overcome the recommendation. The
International Union for Conservation of Nature and International Committee
on Monuments and Statues made the deferral recommendation.

The report to the World Heritage Committee cites three issues or
recommendations for Poverty Point NM, including: diverting highway
Louisiana 577, which runs through the site; enlarging the property; and
creating a bigger buffer zone surrounding the site.

Officials already were concerned about the nomination because the U.S.
hasn’t paid its UNESCO World Heritage Fund dues since 2011. The U.S.
withdrew its funding from UNESCO — about $77 million per year — in 2011
after the Palestinian Authority was admitted as a full member of the
cultural agency. Current law prevents the U.S. from paying dues to any U.N.
body that accepts Palestine as a member. In January, the U.S. House of
Representatives stripped a provision from proposed legislation that would
have allowed the U.S. to pay its UNESCO World Heritage Fund dues.

A vote for deferral potentially seriously damages the chances for Poverty
Point NM, a vast complex of earthen mounds and ridges built by inhabitants
3,500 years ago in what is now West Carroll Parish, Louisiana, to become a
World Heritage Site. If selected, Poverty Point NM would be Louisiana’s
first on the world list, which includes 962 sites in 157 countries. Only 21
sites in the United States have made the list. The designation would put
Poverty Point on par with iconic cultural landmarks such as Stonehenge in
England, the Pyramids at Giza in Egypt, and the Great Wall of China.

Read more:
http://www.thenewsstar.com/article/20140509/NEWS01/305090046/Poverty-Point-s-UN-status-doubt

For more information on Poverty Point NM, go to:
http://www.nps.gov/popo/index.htm

*Navajo Woman Petitions to Live at Wupatki National Monument*
Stella Peshlakai Smith is tied to the land of Wupatki NM by Navajo belief –
her umbilical cord is buried there. And, by law, the 89-year-old has the
right to live on the land because she was born there one month before the
area was declared a national monument in 1924. Now the NPS says that when
she dies, so will her family’s rights to stay on their ancestral land in
Northern Arizona.

According to a letter of authorization the family is contesting, after
Stella dies her family would have six months to vacate the property and an
additional six months to collect any personal items that they have.

Congress, not the NPS, has the power to allow the Peshlakai family to
continue residing at Wupatki NM. A new version of a resolution in support
of the Peshlakais and other Navajo families residing at Wupatki NM is being
considered in the Arizona state legislature. It was introduced by a
relative and Democratic state representative, Jamescita Peshlakai, and
supported by Representative Ann Kirkpatrick.

Relocation carries a painful history for the Navajo. In 1864, hundreds of
Navajo were forced to move from their homes in Northern Arizona by the U.S.
Army, in what is known as the “Long Walk,” into New Mexico. It has been
compared to the “Trail of Tears” — the forced march of thousands of Native
Americans living in the Southeastern part of the U.S. to present-day
Oklahoma. Stella’s family was among those who eventually returned to live
at Wupatki NM.

 Superintendent of the Flagstaff Area Monuments, Kayci Cook, said the park
service has been working with Stella for years and will continue to do so.

Read more:
http://bigstory.ap.org/article/navajo-woman-familys-last-link-monument-land

 For more information on Wupatki NM, go to:
http://www.nps.gov/wupa/index.htm

*Conversation With an Archeologist: Mary Carroll, Chief, Park NAGPRA
Program*
I caught up with Mary Carroll in her office in Lakewood, Colorado, where
she is the Chief of the Park NAGPRA Program. Mary has worked with many NPS
staff involved with repatriation issues in national parks, but people may
not realize that she trained as an archeologist. Archeology, however, was
integral to her career path.

I asked Mary when she first became interested in archeology. She said that
she was in eighth grade social studies class when she first realized that
there had been “all these people who were now gone, and that they had left
things behind.” She liked the idea of studying them, but didn’t like her
eighth grade teacher, and didn’t choose the archeology project because her
teacher liked archeology.

When Mary was 16, her family moved from Iowa to Arizona. Mary can remember
driving past the giant Goodyear sign that displayed the time and
temperature and noting with alarm that it was 108 degrees at 8:00 pm.  The
high school in Tempe offered an anthropology class, however, and away from
her social studies teacher she was able to enjoy the assignments.  This
anthropology class, a rare breed at the time, decided Mary’s path toward
archeology.

Mary entered Arizona State University in 1972 and majored in
anthropology/archeology; she conveniently attended her first field school
on the grounds of the campus.

After graduating from Arizona State University, Mary left archeology for a
while. She moved to California and worked for a year in a hardware store,
where she was in charge of the tools and automotive department. It was a
strangely good experience. She had to leave that job when she moved from
Santa Barbara to San Diego, though. In San Diego, she worked as a directory
assistance operator. “It paid really well, but it was the worst job I ever
had!” Bad or not, she stuck with it for five years until her patience ran
out. Archeology was what she wanted, so she returned to Arizona and
enrolled in the MA program at Arizona State University.

It was here that Mary became interested in computers. She could see the
advantages of using computers to manage archeological data. “What’s the use
of careful excavation if you can’t manage the data and artifacts after they
leave the ground?” Working with thesis advisor Sylvia Gaines, Mary
developed an early relational data base to manage materials from the
Shoofly Village site, in Payson, Arizona. “It was new and innovative at the
time, but now it seems so antiquated,” she laughed. “I did the work in DOS!”

After Mary finished her MA, she worked for a local consulting firm and
stayed on the dual track of combining data management and archeology. After
honing her computer and management skills, she joined the Roosevelt
Platform Mound Study. This was a nine year (1989 to 1998) data recovery
project that excavated 123 villages and 6 platform mounds in Tonto Basin
dating from A.D. 1200 to 1450. It was funded through the BOR under permit
from the Tonto NF as part of the modification of the Theodore Roosevelt
Dam. The four years of field work included the establishment of a field
station in the Lake Roosevelt area supporting a staff of five senior
researchers, 20 field archeologists and 10 laboratory analysts. Mary joined
the project as the assistant lab director.

After two years on this project (where she met her husband), she took a job
with the Central Arizona Project Repository. CAPR was an artifact
repository managed by the BOR, NPS (through the Western Archeological
Conservation Center) and the University of Arizona. Mary points out that
her degrees in archeology AND her data management skills were critical to
getting this position, and that her field experience and social network
were probably an asset as well. While at CAPR, she started a second MA in
management information systems, which was a relatively new field at the
time.

Mary didn’t get to finish that degree, though. Opportunity called, and Mary
was off again, to a NPS job at the National Center for Preservation
Training and Technology, in Natchitoches, Louisiana, this time with a
husband AND a baby in tow. At NCPTT she was a computer specialist, but
knowledge of cultural resources was critical to being offered the job. She
set up NCPTT’s Internet “Gopher”, an early search engine. This was the
mid-1990s, though, so as soon as it was finished (and celebrated), Gopher
was overtaken by the World Wide Web. Mary’s time then shifted to getting
NCPTT onto the Web. Her position morphed into Director of Information
Management, which included overseeing a small grants program focused on
innovative uses of information management technologies in cultural
resources.

At the end of 2001, she headed off to Washington, D.C. to work in the NPS
Archeology Program on Park NAGPRA. At the same time, the NPS Museum
Management Program was updating its cataloging system, ANCS+. Realizing
that there was not in-house expertise to develop the cataloging criteria
for NAGPRA collections, the program tapped Mary to develop a structure.
 She worked with Frank McManamon (then program manager), on a NAGPRA module
that was carried forward into the present cataloging system, ICMS.

As Park NAGPRA matured, it became a program separate from the Archeology
Program, and Mary and family moved to Colorado, where they have been for
the past ten years. She says that the Park NAGPRA Program has been very
fortunate in being supervised by Cydny Martin (retired Director of IMR’s
Office of Indian Affairs and American Culture). Martin taught Mary a lot
about building teams and getting buy-in from stakeholders, and provided a
stable base to build a program that could act pro-actively to assist parks.

I asked Mary what she did in her current job. She and staff provide
technical assistance to parks on repatriation, develop guidance, provide
training, and assist parks in developing grant proposals. Since the work is
so different from what she spent the first ten years of her professional
life doing, was the work satisfying? I was surprised by her answer.

Mary said that since she has started in archeology, over the years it has
become clear to her that the work that archeologists do in excavation and
analysis is not carried out in isolation in a university. It has the
potential to, and does, significantly impact living communities in ways
that she had not appreciated before working with NAGPRA issues. Now she
doesn’t view the archeological world through a research lens; she has a
bigger picture that includes current social issues as well as the issues of
the people who are gone. Engaging with these social issues and assisting
the NPS to comply with cultural resource laws gives her a great deal of
satisfaction, and she is deservedly proud of the accomplishments of her
office.

Thanks for talking with us, Mary!

*National Park Service Awards $400,000 to Protect Three Civil War
Battlefields*
NPS Director Jonathan B. Jarvis has announced more than $400,000 in grants
from the Land and Water Conservation Fund to help preserve more than 300
acres of land at 3 Civil War battlefields threatened with damage or
destruction by development. The grant projects are at the Mansfield (LA),
Glorieta Pass (NM) and Bentonville (NC) battlefields.

The grants are from the NPS’s American Battlefield Protection Program, one
of more than a dozen programs administered by the NPS that provide states
and local communities technical assistance, recognition, and funding to
help preserve their own history and create close-to-home recreation
opportunities. Consideration for the Civil War battlefield land acquisition
grants is given to battlefields listed in the NPS’s Civil War Sites
Advisory Commission Report on the Nation’s Civil War Battlefields.

Grants are awarded to state and local governments for the fee simple
acquisition of land, or for the non-federal acquisition of permanent,
protective interests in land (easements). Private non-profit groups may
apply in partnership with state or local government sponsors. Guidelines
for grant eligibility and application forms are available online at:
http://www.nps.gov/history/hps/abpp.

Contact: Elizabeth Vehmeyer, Grants Management Specialist, 202-354-2215.

*NPS Announces Grants to Help Identify and Repatriate Human Remains,
Cultural Objects*
NPS has announced nearly $40,000 in repatriation grants under the Native
American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) to assist museums,
Indian tribes and Native Hawaiian organizations in returning ancestral
human remains and cultural objects to their people.

The grants support the efforts of museums and Indian tribes to pay for the
costs associated with the return of human remains and objects to their
community of origin. NAGPRA supports the efforts of museums, Indian tribes
and Native Hawaiian organizations to consult and document NAGPRA-related
human remains and cultural items in non-federal collections through
consultation/documentation grants.

Projects funded by the grant program also include training for both museum
and tribal staff on NAGPRA, digitizing collection records for consultation,
and consultations regarding cultural affiliation and culturally
unaffiliated individuals.

Regents of the University of Colorado
                    $14,194
Little Traverse Band of Odawa Indians
                     $1,902
Nottawaseppi Huron Band of Potawatomi
              $15,000
Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe of Michigan/Ziibiwing Center
  $8,717

Contact: Sherry Hutt, National NAGPRA Program Manager, 202-354-1479

*NPS Awards Grants to Support Historic Preservation through Technology*
NPS Director Jonathan B. Jarvis has announced the award of $195,200 in
grants from the National Center for Preservation Technology & Training
(NCPTT) to assist with projects using science and technology for historic
preservation. A total of five grants, ranging from $38,500 to $40,000, were
awarded for projects that develop new technologies or adapt existing
technologies to preserve our nation’s cultural resources.

Grants for archeological projects include:

·   $38,500 to the Arizona Department of Parks for The Impact of Climate
Change on Archeological Resources in Arizona: Harnessing Citizen Science
through the Arizona Site Stewardship Network,

·    $39,600 to Stephen F. Austin University for 3D Preservation,
Documentation, and Geometric Morphometric Analysis of Intact Caddo NAGPRA
Vessels from Sixteen Caddo Sites in East Texas, and

·    $40,000 to University of Memphis for Visualization of Chert Artifacts
Using Reflectance Spectroscopy as a Preservation Provenance Technology.

NCPTT has funded science and technology projects in historic preservation
since 1994. The center strives to create new technologies and training
opportunities to preserve prehistoric and historic resources throughout the
United States.

*Former Superintendent Fired for Damaging Resources at Effigy Mounds
National Monument*
During Phyllis Ewing’s tenure as superintendent of Effigy Mounds NM from
1999 to 2010, she and subordinates built boardwalks, trails, and a
maintenance shed without following Federal laws that required consultation
with 12 tribes and reviews by state archeologists before approval,
investigation documents show.

The documents included a 2010 memo sent by Regional Director Ernest
Quintana to NPS Director Jon Jarvis warning that the illegal construction
“had major, adverse impacts to cultural landscapes and to aboriginal
American Indian structures that (the site) was established to protect.”

Regional officials in Omaha, NE uncovered the violations in 2009, but
waited years to take disciplinary action against Ewing. NPS kept Ewing as
superintendent after the 2009 audit and allowed her to transfer to a
curator job with the regional office in Omaha a year later. She was fired
in February 2014 and is contesting the decision. Michael Carroll, Ewing’s
lawyer, said his client’s recent firing was based on allegations that she
failed to perform duties and follow guidelines dating to her tenure as
superintendent. She’s pursuing an internal complaint alleging gender and
age discrimination.

This incident recently became public, when NPS released its 700-page report
on a criminal investigation of Ewing and maintenance director Tom Sinclair.

Read more:
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/may/10/illegal-park-service-projects-damage-sacred-site/#ixzz31VGBiETm


*Native American Activist Billy Frank Dies*
Billy Frank Jr., a key figure in the fight to protect Native American
fishing rights and salmon habitat, passed away at home on May 5, 2014. He
was 83.

Frank was chairman of the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission for more
than 30 years. A Nisqually Tribe member, Frank was known specifically for
his grassroots campaign in defense of fishing rights on the Tribe’s
Nisqually River north of Olympia in the 1960s and 1970s. Frank was arrested
more than 50 times in the “Fish Wars” of that time.

In 1970, the U.S. sued the State of Washington on behalf of the Treaty
Tribes, alleging the state was preventing tribes from exercising the
fishing rights guaranteed them under treaties signed with the U.S. On
February 12, 1974, U.S. District Court Judge George H. Boldt ruled in favor
of the Treaty Tribes.

Boldt’s ruling, which was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court, did more than
affirm Indian fishing rights. It upheld treaties as being supreme over
state law, as stated in the U.S. Constitution. It established Treaty Tribes
as co-managers of the salmon fishery. And it spawned other actions designed
to protect salmon, because — as Frank stated in the ensuing years — if
there is no salmon fishery, then the treaty is violated. This ruling
continues to impact legal proceedings regarding fishing rights and the
protection of wildlife.

*New Website Creates Access to Myriad Historical Publications of Parks
Canada*
A new website has been created to showcase the rich history of the Canadian
National Park System. The National Parks, Historic Sites, and Marine
Conservation Areas present a Canadian cultural and natural history
textbook. The goal of this new website is to be the largest digital library
of hard-to-find, long out-of-print, Parks Canada publications. From its
first director, J.B. Harkin, to the present day, Parks Canada has produced
a wealth of books, technical reports, and visitor information literature.

ParksCanadaHistory.com could not have been created without the help and
support of Dr. Alan MacEachern, Associate Professor of Canadian History at
the University of Western Ontario and Director of NiCHE.

To visit the site, go to: http://parkscanadahistory.com/

*ATV Riders, Bureau of Land Management Clash Over Motorized Access to
Recapture Canyon*
Federal agents have launched damage inspection of protected archeological
sites at Recapture Canyon in southern Utah where about 300 public-lands
activists on all-terrain vehicles (ATVs) recently staged a weekend protest
ride challenging the prolonged government closure of a canyon trail.

BLM Utah director Juan Palma expressed concern that riders may have damaged
artifacts and dwellings left by Ancestral Puebloans, who lived in the
canyon until 800 years ago.

The BLM closed the canyon trail to motorized use in 2007 after its agents
said they found an illegally blazed trail and damage to Native American
sites. The protesters are calling for Federal land managers to reopen the
trail to recreational vehicles after seven years of government study and
indecision.

The rally, coinciding with heightened political tensions over government
control of public lands across the West, climaxed as dozens of protesters,
some armed with guns, rode ATVs down a closed-off trail through Utah’s
red-rock desert.

 San Juan County Commissioner Phil Lyman, acting as a private citizen,
organized the event, which started with a rally in Blanding’s Centennial
Park, to protest what he and more than 200 supporters called Federal
“overreach” into local jurisdiction.

The Federal government says it plans to prosecute those who illegally rode
an ATV on federally protected lands in southeastern Utah during the
demonstration; Federal officers were present in the canyon recording riders
and gathering evidence.

Media reports have likened the Utah lands dispute to Cliven Bundy’s case –
the Nevada rancher who has refused to pay federal cattle-grazing fees for
two decades. The Nevada situation led to armed supporters defending Bundy
when the BLM tried to cover the rancher’s debt to the government by
rounding up some of his cattle. Bundy’s son, Ryan, joined the protest ride
into Recapture Canyon.

For more information, read “Utah County Wants ATV Road Through
Archeological District” in the February 2014 issue of the Archeology
E-Grams.

 *NPS Group E-Mail Address Lists*
The NPS Archeology Program and WASO IT has updated the NPS archeologist
group email lists in Bison Connect. These lists are intended to facilitate
communication among NPS archeologists, and all are encouraged to use them.
The five groups are:
NPS Archeologists in Parks
NPS Archeologists in ROs and SOs
NPS Archeologists in Centers
NPS Regional Archeologists (new!)
NPS Archeologists at WASO
WASO CR Archeology

If you are trying to contact the NPS Archeology Program (plus a few), use
“WASO CR Archeology.” If you want to reach all the archeologists in all the
programs at WASO, use “NPS Archeologists at WASO.”

*Contact*: Teresa Moyer, 202-354-2124

*Confederate Steamer Hijacked by Slaves Found off Coast of South Carolina*
Marine archeologists with NOAA have announced the discovery of The Planter,
a Canadian cargo ship and crew transport that was leased to the Confederate
Navy when the Civil War broke out in early 1862. Robert Smalls, then a
slave and steersman on the Planter, sailed seven crew members and their
families to freedom through the Union blockade of Charleston Harbor.

On the night of May 12, 1862, the officers of the Planter disembarked to
attend a ball in Charleston, leaving black crew members on board. Smalls
sailed to a nearby wharf to pick up several families and then sailed out to
sea, wearing the straw hat of a captain so as not to be noticed by guards
at the harbor entrance.

The ship was used by the U.S. Navy for the rest of the war, and then sold
into private hands. It sunk at Cape Romania, South Carolina in 1876 during
a storm. Smalls, accepted into the U.S. Navy, captained the Planter and
other ships until the war ended. Returning home to Beaufort, South
Carolina, he was elected to five terms as a congressman from South Carolina.

The Planter was found via information from a six-year search for the side
wheel steamship using historic records, side-scan sonar, and
ground-penetrating magnetometers. Whether it will be excavated or left
where found has not been decided. The wreck is near a sensitive loggerhead
sea turtle nesting area.

Read more:
http://news.discovery.com/history/us-history/confederate-steamer-hijacked-by-slaves-found-off-sc-140514.htm

*E-Gram Guest Editor Leah Burgin*

Leah Burgin is excited to spend the summer as a National Council for
Preservation Education (NCPE) Intern in the NPS Archeology Program, and to
act as Summer Guest Editor for the Archeology E-Gram. Leah graduated from
the University of Michigan in 2013 with a BA in anthropology. Since
graduating, Leah has worked in the education departments of several
museums, including the National Building Museum, National Zoo, and National
Museum of Natural History. An avid visitor to national parks (and she has
been busy visiting parks in the Washington, DC area!),  Leah is looking
forward to her time in the Archeology Program, where she will be working on
updating the LOOT Clearinghouse and, of course, the E-Gram.

*Projects in Parks:* is taking a break this month.

Projects in Parks is a feature of the Archeology E-Gram that informs others
about archeology-related projects in national parks. The full reports are
available on the Projects in Parks web page
http://www.nps.gov/archeology/sites/npSites/index.htm or through individual
issues of the Archeology E-Gram.

Archeology E-Gram, distributed via e-mail on a regular basis, includes
announcements about news, new publications, training opportunities,
national and regional meetings, and other important goings-on related to
public archeology in the NPS and other public agencies. Recipients are
encouraged to forward Archeology E-Grams to colleagues and relevant mailing
lists. The illustrated Archeology E-Gram is available on the News and Links
page http://www.nps.gov/archeology/new.htm on the NPS Archeology Program
website.

*Contact:* Karen Mudar at [log in to unmask] to contribute news items, stories for
Projects in Parks, and to subscribe.